Cleopatra Jones

Well first off the characters throughout this film seem larger than life in the sense that they do not seem to live by any social standard but instead following their own code in what seems to be a whole other universe from our own. Especially the females and especially Cleo whom seems almost heroic. She wears over the top clothing, drives a flashy car and lives an extravagant lifestyle by her own set of rules that seem to over throw even the authorities at times, meanwhile never forgetting the life she came from. "Mommy," played by Shelly Winters is also a strong female that seems to live the same type of way as Cleopatra. She is a strong female dominating in a male dominated world. Really, how many times will we ever see in real life or fiction a female character the pin head of a major drug trafficking operation? Never, is the answer; because it is usually wealthy men. 


The power of feminism reins free throughout the entire film. If the protagonist in this film had been male unlike Cleo he would have been torn and tattered by the films ending. Cleopatra however never had a hair out of place or a wrinkle in site, which is entirely to strange considering Cleo seems far too exotic and feminine to be carrying a gun and man handling gangster after gangster. When first seeing Cleo one would think she was an outstanding women who had a husband and three little children running around, which how women are largely viewed, you would never think of her packing a gun. Nor, would we believe that a short, plump women with bad wigs would run an entire thug empire, again man handling her own goons and killing people because historically that was always a "mans part."


However, I do feel that every time a woman plays a strong female lead the character is almost always made out to be super hero-like, in the sense that she almost seems unreal and could never possibly be a real life woman ever. Because we all know that if anyone was to get into a fight they would never come out of it looking and smelling like a rose. Unless were you know - SuperMAN, BatMAN or ... Cleopatra Jones. Think about it, if the character was not made out to be superhuman she would seem to be a weak little girl whom got beat down repeatedly to only catch a lucky break in the end - i.e every horror movie known to man kind. 


This film without a doubt uses feminism to a tee in the sense that for any real life women to be able to kick the massive but that Cleopatra did she would not only have to look great doing it but she would have to posses some sort of unnatural ability to do so. 

Manchurian Candidate

Is the art of brainwashing a vice that could actually occur? Is it truly possible to train a human being to execute a plan and take lives in a very precise manner as to not get caught or even remember the act of doing from only viewing the queen of diamonds in a deck of 52 playing cards? A question that is both believable and quite interesting to me. I believe that if started young enough a person can be trained to do or live any way the puppeteer chooses for them. While watching this film I couldn't help but notice the similaritaries between it and Angelina Jolie's film Salt. Salt was a film compossed with the idea that the Russian government from birth would give children american identities and sculpt them into perfectly trained sleeper assains. These children would live, eat and play this lifestyle until they were old enough to be transfered to American to start fulling their jobs. They were even taught english at birth so that they would have perfect american accents.

I feel Mrs. Iselin was the perfect person to train Shaw. She was a very strong and cold character that would fill Shaw's head with the material necessary to carry out the goals of the Russian government. She fills the momism role to a tee and is perfect example of a corrupt and controlling. And Shaw having the sense to protect his mother this monster is a great example of the demonology term we read throughout the reading. Having made this film at around the time when JFK was assassinated I believe played out the idea of McCarthyism and Communism. Shaw and his stepfather we both puppets of Mrs. Iselin and the Russian government much like McCarthy and Lee Harvey Oswald were to the vices of their own government in the sense that was we see and hear makes us do.

I personal found this movie to be very interesting. I liked the fact that in the end Iselin and Shaw were killed and Manchurian Global was forced out of the shaddows and all was well. I believe that this bringing an end to Manchurian and the film gave the viewer the sense that out country is strong and we always find out the truth and we will never let the threat of communism bring us down.